Appearing each Wednesday, this Cloud News Report will compile our top three favorite cloud news stories from the past week.

Do common cloud assumptions hold up to scrutiny?

The holiday season often means getting together with family and friends you don’t see often. To anyone who works in cloud and is asked about it by someone unfamiliar with IT, you may hear a lot of assumptions first-hand. Does the weather impact it? Is that how I can watch my DVRed shows while I’m away from the TV? What does “cloud” even mean? This article may not help you explain cloud to your grandmother over a tray of cookies, but it does a great job of addressing many high-level myths circulating about cloud including the following, “Everyone moving to the cloud,” “Moving to the cloud means I no longer have to worry about downtime,” and more.

Taking a jump to the international scene, this Economic Times article reports from Bangalore on the cloud investment forecast. Peerzada Abrar reports that investments in cloud startups are increasing and cites the attractiveness of cloud-based applications across verticals as an attractive feature. Abrar cites the cloud market in Indiana estimated to grow 10x by 2015 and argues that cloud startups are being valued at 5-8 times their revenues with the reduced manpower and capital needed to set-up.

IaaS and PaaS revenues growing at 65% per year

A new report from Synergy Research Group illustrated 65% growth in the first half of this year from the same time last year. That translates into $2.75 billion in revenues from the two services. The total share of the infrastructure market for IaaS and Paas combined has doubled, growing from 6% to 12% since 2010.